The Nightman Cometh Part 2.

Huge-ass bag of whole leaf Citra hops, they smelled amazing.

On November 5th 2011, myself and Amsterdam Head Brewer Iain Mcoustra brewed the Nighman on Amsterdam's production system.  We kept the recipe as close as possible to the homebrew version, the only changes were dropping the small amount of Victory malt, and using Amsterdams's house yeast, WLP 007.  They even had 2011 whole leaf Citra express shipped in from Washington, as they didn't have any in stock.

When we checked the gravity of the first runnings we discovered that there had been an error in calculating the amount of malt we needed.  We made a decision on the fly to reduce the batch size to ensure we hit our target starting gravity.

Our starting gravity was 1.083, and the beer finished at 1.017 for an ABV of 8.6%.

On December 2nd we bottled the Nighman in 500ml bottles, ending up with 26 cases of 24 bottles.  It was sold exclusively at Amsterdam's on premises retail store for $4.00 per bottle.

Tasting

The end result was quite similar to the homebrew version.  The Citra and Chinook combine to create a candy-like aroma, with a hint of roastiness. The main difference was Amsterdam's version was a fair bit roastier than the homebrewed Nightman. This lead me to believe that perhaps Carafa III was used instead of the de-husked Carafa Special III.

Below are the reviews from RateBeer, and Beer Advocate;

The Nightman Cometh - RateBeer
The Nightman Cometh - Beer Advocate

Lynn's Take


"Its like wasabi.  It has some spice, it goes right to my nose."

The Nightman Cometh Part 1.

First sample of the Nightman, right out of the fermenter

This is the reason I began homebrewing.  No commercial black IPAs available in Ontario?  No problem, I'll just make one myself.

The Nightman was born on August 21, 2010.  It was my third ever batch of homebrew.  At the time I was living in a world of darkness (and watching a lot of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia).  I wanted to drink a big black IPA, and try brewing with Citra hops for the first time.

I put together a fairly simple recipe consisting of 2-row, C45, and Carafa Special III.  Bittered with Warrior, and with Simcoe and Amarillo late in the boil.  My initial plan was to dry hop with 3oz of Citra, but after some research I got scared about using that much Citra for dry hopping. I had read several places that it was easy to overdo it with Citra.  The only other hop I had a the time was 1oz of Chinook, so i decided to dry hop with 1oz of Chinook and 1oz of Citra.

The beer was amazing!  My first two beers were decent, but this one was really something special.  It was the first moment in homebrewing that I felt like I was able to make a brewery quality beer.

Looking back, I'm sure a 3oz Citra dry hop wouldn't have been too much, but I'm glad I came across the beautiful combination of Chinook and Citra.

Return of the Nightman


June 12, 2011 was the second coming of the Nightman.  As it turned out so well the first time, I only made minor changes to the recipe.  I swapped the C45 for C77, Upped the Carafa Special III to 1 lb, and added some Victory I had lying around from a previous batch.  As for the hops, I really wanted to focus on the Citra and Chinook combination, so I changed the late boil hops from Amarillo and Simcoe, to Citra and Chinook. Finally I upped the dry hops to 2oz of each.  The first batch of the Nightman was fermented with Pacman, this time around I had lots of Wyeast 1450, so I just used that.  


Recipe is as follows:

No. 16: The Nightman Cometh

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.084 SG
Estimated Color: 38.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 90.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain

15.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Carafa III (525.0 SRM)
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (77.0 SRM)
0.38 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)

Hops

1.00 oz Chinook [12.40 %] (60 min) (First Wort)
1.00 oz Chinook [12.40 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (10 min)
1.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (10 min)
2.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (0 min)
2.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (0 min)

2.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (Dry Hop 14 days)
2.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (Dry Hop 14 days)

Yeast

1 Pkgs Denny's Favorite 50 (Wyeast Labs #1450)


Mash Schedule

Mashed @ 152F for 60 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

63F ambient for 4 weeks

Actual Numbers

Measured OG: 1.084
Measured FG: 1.022
ABV: 8.1%

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2011 Toronto Homebrew Competition


After not having anything ready to send to the 2010 Toronto Homebrew competition, I wanted to hit the 2011 competition hard.  I had and imperial stout that had been in the bottle for 8 months, a several month old American style barleywine, and a super fresh hoppy wheat beer, all of which I would be sending to the competition.  I almost didn't even submit the Nightman.  It had been in the bottle for 9 weeks by the final entry date of the competition, and the hops had started to fade away into the darkness.  I had a couple extra bottles, so I included them with the rest of my submissions.  It was entered under category 23, and on the entry form I specifically didn't call it a black IPA, as I felt it would get dinged for not being hoppy enough.   I called it, "The Nightman Cometh, Black Ale".


Competition Results


The results for the categories I entered were as follows:


Milds, Stouts and Porters

Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – Coffee Stout
Silver: Kyle Teichert – The Imp – Imperial Milk Porter
Bronze Spencer McCormack – Stormy Night Stout

Strong Ale

Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – Barleywine
Silver: Eric Ecclestone and Russ Burdick – Old Toby
Bronze: Kyle Teichert – Honey Nugget Barleywine

Light Hybrid Beer

Gold: Dan Poulin – 11-005 Creme Ale
Silver: Jeremy Skorochid – Wheat Beer
Bronze: Jordan Rainhard – Homecoming Ale

Black IPA

Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – The Nightman Cometh
Silver: Duncan Rodger – Hop Will Eat Itself
Bronze: Jeremy Coghill – Black Hearted Ale

Needless to say I was pretty happy about how successful I was, but I was especially shocked that they had created and Black IPA category, and I had won.

1st Round Judge Feedback on The Nightman


Dark creamy pour with a nice lingering head. Some hops and sweet fruitiness in the nose. Very balanced flavor with a well-integrated roastiness. Nice body with a balanced sweetness and good hop bite. A fine effort. Gold medal.


Best of Show Round 


The winners from each category advanced to the best of show round where they would battle against each other, the winner getting at trip to the 2012 Craft Beer Conference in San Diego.

The 24 beers were judged by a panel that consisted mostly of brewers from Toronto area breweries.  They narrowed the beers down to their top 6, of which my coffee stout and the Nightman were part of.

When the dust settled, The Nightman had been very narrowly edged out for the best in show.  My reward for taking second place overall was Amsterdam Brewery in Toronto would brew a a one-off, production size batch of the Nightman.



 

Batch No. 22: Bourbon Vanilla Porter

This beer was based on Denny's famous Bourbon Vanilla Porter Recipe.   It is a recipe that I have seen kicking around for quite a while, and it always seems to get rave reviews.   Denny's Most recent recipe for this beer is as follows:

#383 Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (Gal): 5.50 Wort Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 19.38
Anticipated OG: 1.084 Plato: 20.30
Anticipated SRM: 45.2
Anticipated IBU: 32.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 73 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

Amount Name Origin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America
2.75 lbs. Munich Malt(2-row) America
1.63 lbs. Brown Malt Great Britain
1.38 lbs. Chocolate Malt America
1.06 lbs. Crystal 120L America
0.56 lbs. Crystal 60L America

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.75 oz. Magnum Whole 14.60 30.1 60 min.
0.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Whole 4.75 2.4 10 min.

Yeast
-----
WY1450 Denny's Favorite 50


For my own recipe I made a few minor tweaks, but as the recipe is so highly regarded I didn't want to deviate too much.  I didn't have any Munich at the time, so I substituted the 2-row, and Munich with Marris Otter in order to get a bit more flavour from my base malt.   I also thew in some flaked barley that I had left over from another recipe, figuring you can't go wrong with a bit of flaked barley in this type of beer.

I also decided to add a little bit of American oak, as I have heard of other people oaking this recipe with success.

My version of the recipe is as follows:

No. 22:  Bourbon Vanilla Porter

Batch Size: 5.75 gal
Boil Size: 7.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.083 SG
Estimated Color: 45.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 48.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain

14.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
1.50 lb Brown Malt (65.0 SRM)
1.25 lb Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 45L (45.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)

Hops

1.00 oz Warrior [17.00 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min)

Yeast

2 Packages Safale US-05

Misc.

2 Vanilla Beans
350ml of Bulleit Bourbon
0.75oz medium toast American oak cubes

Mash Schedule

Mashed @ 150F for 75 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

58F ambient temperature for 1 week
65F ambient for 2 weeks
58F ambient temperature for 1 week

Actual Numbers

Measured OG: 1.083
Measured FG: 1.022
ABV: 7.9% (8.5% after bourbon addition)

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Bourbon

I don't really know a whole lot about bourbon, so I just picked up a bottle of Knob Creek to use in this recipe.  On my brothers suggestion I also picked up a bottle of Bulleit, and I had a bourbon showdown to determine which one would be given the honour of flavouring my beer.

The Knob Creek was quite sweet tasting with big vanilla and oak flavours.  The Bulleit had the same vanilla and oak flavours, but was much less sweet.  It also had a little bit of spiciness, probably from the high percentage of rye that it is made with.  If I was just going to drink the bourbon by itself, my preference would be the Knob Creek. However, for adding to the beer I liked the spiciness and reduced sweetness of the Bulleit, so that is what I chose.

Adding the Bourbon, Vanilla, & Oak

During the second week of fermentation I soaked two chopped and scraped vanilla beans in 50ml of bourbon.

Vanilla beans and bourbon were added to the fermenter at the beginning of week 3 of fermentation.

0.75 oz of medium toast American oak cubes were boiled for 10 minutes and added to the fermenter at the beginning of week 4 of fermentation.

300ml of bourbon was added at bottling, after 4 weeks in the fermenter.

Tasting

The vanilla and oak got kind of lost in this beer.  I really have a hard time picking out any discernible vanilla or oak flavours. Thats not to say that they aren't contributing anything, its just not obvious to me.  The bourbon is the real star of the show here.  It is quite subtle when the beer is cold, but the bourbon flavour really opens up as the beer warms.  Overall, I love it.  The beer has been a big hit with everyone who has tried it, and it is on my short list of beers to brew again.

Lynn's Take

"Smells like soy sauce.  This is the soy sauce beer isn't it?" (referring to Dark Lord)

"Its very thin.  Doesn't have any mouth feel"

Me, “take an other sip”

"OK, it has pretty good mouth feel.  I still don't like it though."

Thoughts for Next Time


The vanilla beans were from Costco, and fairly cheap compared to anywhere else you see vanilla beans for sale. They smelled beautiful and were nice and moist when I chopped them up, but they were a bit on the skinny side.  If I were to use these beans again, I would use three or maybe even four of them for a full two weeks in the beer.

I am a little paranoid when adding oak to a beer.  This was only the second time I have ever oaked a beer, and the first was not what you would call a success.  The first time I ever added oak to a beer was 1oz of medium toast American oak cubes to an Arrogant Bastard clone.  They were in the fermenter for a week, and the beer came out tasting like liquid oak.  This time I wanted to err on the side of caution and only used 0.75oz for a week.  With all the strong flavours going on in the beer, it was simply not enough oak.  I'd increase to at least 1oz for my next attempt.

The final thing I would change is to possibly add a little more bourbon.  350ml is almost spot on for my taste but I think I would try 375 to 400ml next time, just to make it a little more up-front at cooler temperatures.